


In The Closet

by ashkazora



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), Secret Relationship, just a little, rated teen because it gets a lil saucy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28208946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkazora/pseuds/ashkazora
Summary: He was going home.To Lance.To his goofy personality, beautiful ocean-blue eyes. To his kind heart and warm embrace. Everything, yet barely the start of the long list of things Keith missed about the paladin. The distance between them made his heart ache in something familiar, yet new.As Keith boarded one of the Blade’s ships, he couldn’t lie to himself about how excited he was to finally see Lance again.-In which Keith comes back home for a mission, only to be ambushed and dragged into a closet by a certain paladin.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 192





	In The Closet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glitteringconstellations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteringconstellations/gifts).



> What's up everyone! This is a gift fic for glitteringconstellations, who won my 100 followers on Tumblr fic giveaway!
> 
> They requested canonverse, BoM!Keith RedPaladin!Lance, and either mutual pining/getting together or a secret relationship.
> 
> As always, I hope y'all enjoy this fic!

03:12 BMST, 25.12.20XX 

Keith got the call at three am.

Well, he _thought_ it was three in the morning, but on a secretive space fortress wedged in between two black holes and a star, time was irrelevant. Keith had just spent two weeks, no, movements, undercover in an Empire prison ship, and honestly? He was more than just a little bit tired. So, imagine how he felt when Kolivan, in all of his purple-haired glory, quite literally dragged him out of bed and hauled him to the comms room. Too dazed to even question anything, he was greeted with the sight of a very stressed out looking Shiro, with Allura and Coran standing in the background of the Castle on the screen in front of him.

His immediate thought was _this can’t be good_ , followed by _Shiro looks like an absolute mess,_ and to no one’s surprise the former paladin was right on both counts. Donned with dark, heavy bags underneath his eyes and an expression that could only be described as absolutely _finished,_ Shiro’s face visibly lightened up as Keith entered the room.

“Keith!” Shiro gave a collected smile, “How’s everything? Is the Blade treating you well?” 

The Blade of Marmora has been working him to the bone, but Keith didn’t want to tell his brother that. Shiro would probably go berserk if he found out about the missions Keith had been on. Assassinations were definitely not the greatest thing for a developing eighteen-year-old. 

“Good as usual,” he answered, voice still bleary from being woken up. “Is everything good back at the Castle?”

Something flashes across his brother’s face, but it’s gone before Keith can decipher it. “We need you to pilot the Red Lion.” Shiro said, jumping straight into business.

Pulse quickening, Keith’s ashen eyes widening in shock. That’s... not what he expected. Dark thoughts swirl in his mind, jumping to conclusions. This… this wasn’t good.

“Is Lance okay?! _What happened?”_

Lance had been texting him only a few nights ago, and Keith wasn’t aware of any major missions Voltron he’d been on. Maybe there had been another malfunction in the castle? _Or maybe-_

Holding his hands up, Shiro winced guiltily. “Oh! It’s not like that! I can’t say too much over a call, but Pidge recently discovered a shipment of quintessence being escorted by druids. We’re going to intercept the shipment and steal the quintenssem, but since you have experience with fighting Druids and Allura will be needed out of the Lions, Allura and I thought that you’d be a good addition to this mission. And, on top of that,” his face softened, “the team misses you.” 

Keith frowned, then immediately stopped as he realised what Shiro was saying. They wanted him back. 

At the Castle.

With L--

“I’ll do it.” Keith said, almost too fast. “When do you want me there?”

“As soon as possible. Allura will wormhole over to rendezvous point seven in the Ignis galaxy, and we can meet you there. Kolivan has already refulled a cargo vessel...”

Keith had already turned to leave, faintly hearing his brother’s words melt away. 

He was going _home._

_To Lance._

To his goofy personality, beautiful ocean-blue eyes. To his kind heart and warm embrace. Everything, yet barely the start of the long list of things Keith missed about the paladin. The distance between them made his heart ache in something familiar, yet new. 

As Keith boarded one of the Blade’s ships, he couldn’t lie to himself about how excited he was to finally see Lance again. 

* * *

* * *

07:41 BMST, 25.12.20XX 

The ride over to the Castle was a bumpy, uncomfortable, and an all-round painful experience with him cramped into a cargo vessel the size of a shoebox. Keith spent the hours he could’ve used for sleep, piloting to the Castle of the Lions.

During the ride, Shiro had contacted him again to explain that the team - save for him and Allura - were all asleep, and that he was to come to the mission control room as soon as he landed for the pre-mission briefing. There was a large emphasis on not waking anyone up as apparently, the team had a rough couple of days fighting a non-stop horde of Galran Empire fleets. Keith had snorted at that, grateful that he no longer had to put up with the lack of sleep that followed Voltron and their battles. By the time his trip was over, his lower back throbbed something nasty and his legs had cramped in ways he had never experienced before. 

But no matter how painful the ride was, boarding in the Castle’s hangars seemed to relieve him of all aches and pains. 

Almost three-and-a-half hours after he had left the Blades, Keith finally made it to the rendezvous point and boarded the Castle’s hangars. Something cold and refreshing trickled down his spine as he disembarked the ship to see the familiar white and teal architecture. It had been long - too long - since he had last been here. 

Excitement thrummed through his veins, almost drowning out the exhaustion he felt. He almost, _almost,_ wanted to wake the paladins up and greet them but ultimately decided against it. They deserved their sleep. 

Besides, Shiro has already asked him to come to the control room. Who was he to keep his brother waiting?

Keith left his shuttle in the hangars and started making his way to Shiro. Walking down the corridors, memories relentlessly assaulted him of his life before the Blade of Marmora. The food goo fights, the invisible mazes, the endless shenanigans that made him feel a lot less like a child soldier and more as, well, a child. 

It was nice.

So nice, that for the first time in too long, Keith was too caught up in his memories to closely pay attention to his surroundings. A rookie error, something his teachers at the Blade beat out of him months ago. _Supposedly._

Yet as hands gripped him from behind and dragged him into a nearby utility closet, Keith froze up. By the time he realised what was happening the door to the closet had been shut, enveloping him in an ominous darkness. One of his assailant’s hands moved to cover his lips; he could practically feel callouses from their fingers against his skin. 

Keith jerked his body forwards once, twice, but the arm wrapped around his torso held too strong. With a squeeze he was enveloped even tighter into the person’s grip, so close that their warm breath billowed against the back of his neck. 

They leaned down, their close proximity sending shivers down Keith’s spine. For a moment too long all he could focus on was their body pressed against his and the heavy breathing that permeated the silence of the room, and then--

_“Guess who?”_

All of the tension left Keith’s body. He elbowed the person in the stomach, a smile playing on his face as he heard their pained ‘oof.’ The hand detached from his mouth and a second later, the lights in the closet flickered to life.

“Lance, you _idiot.”_ Keith said, as fondly as he could. Turning around carefully so as to not jostle any of the now-illuminated shelving stacked with various Altean cleaning supplies, he tilted his head slightly upwards to gaze at his boyfriend. “You almost scared me.”

Lance raised a hand to his chest, looking down in faux surprise. “Me, scare the great Keith Kogane? _Never.”_

Keith didn’t bother with a reply. He leaned forward, rocking onto his toes ever-so-slightly, and met Lance’s lips with his own. 

The kiss was short and sweet and everything Keith had imagined while on his way to the Castle, yet something inside of him lusted for more. A hot, scalding fire burned deep in his belly, barely contained by his ever-thinning restraint. 

By the way Lance whimpered softly as he pulled away, Keith knew his boyfriend felt the same way.

_“God,_ I missed you so much.” Lance murmured, his voice hoarse in a way that made Keith too hot in the confined room. The blue paladin wrapped his arms around his torso, and Keith knew there was no way of him getting out of the hug any time soon. “Promise me you won’t leave again?”

Once upon a time, Keith would have flinched away from Lance’s full-body contact. Growing up in foster homes and halfway houses did nothing but foster an aversion to contact, a distaste that he couldn’t run away from even after he started living with the Shirogane family. But somehow, Lance was the single exception. 

Melting into his boyfriend’s hold, Keith tried to focus more on Lance’s body heat rather than his question. Truth be told, he had no answer. After the mission Kolivan would undoubtedly call him back to the Blades. Anything beyond that? Keith had no idea what could happen. 

“Of course,” he replied after a moment too long. To that Lance chuckled, knowing full well that Keith had no choice whether he could stay or not. They had done this rodeo too many times before. It was like a cycle - Keith would be invited on a mission with Team Voltron, Lance would ask him to stay, Keith would leave.

The blue-turned-red paladin always had trouble saying goodbye.

Tilting his head slightly, Keith dragged his hands up his boyfriend’s back. “Do tell, why did you drag me here?” It seems like an awfully inconvenient place to, uh…”

“Make out? Kiss?” Lance interjected, grinning roguishly back at him. “Make _loooove~”_

Keith’s face immediately darkened to resemble an overripe strawberry. Heat flushed across his cheeks as he stammered in embarrassment, “No! We’re not doing- uh-” 

“Don’t worry, _cariño_ , I was only joking.” Lance punctuated his sentence with a wink, causing the former paladin to bang his head against his boyfriend’s chest. 

“You’re insufferable. Why do I like you?” Keith murmured. 

They both stared at each other. While he struggled to say it out loud, Keith well and truly _loved_ Lance, even for all of his goofy antics. Ever since he had confessed to the paladin during their brief stint as a leader and right-hand man duo, their relationship had blossomed into something more passionate than Keith had ever felt. 

He loved Lance’s slightly crooked grin, the way the skin around his eyes would crinkle whenever he smiled, the single dimple on his face. He loved how light-hearted the boy could be in a time of war, yet how serious and downright _terrifying_ he would get when it was needed.

He loved that for once, his feelings were reciprocated. How Lance had managed to worm himself into Keith’s heart.

And that?

That meant the world.

“Remind me again why we need to keep this thing secret?” Lance said, eyes hazy with something awfully familiar. “Don’t get me wrong, the closet is a great place to make out, but staying in the closet is never fun if you know what I mean.”

Keith couldn’t help but snort at any of his jokes. “Because the others have a betting pool on us, and if we wait two more months Hunk wins five hundred GAC.” He paused, then continued, “that, and Allura has forbidden relationships between the team.”

That was obviously the wrong thing to say, as Lance’s expression quickly dropped into something darker. “Oh, yeah,” He bit out, “How could I forget?”

Instead of answering back, Keith opted to press another kiss to his lips. Lance reciprocated readily and before long, the paladin’s back was pressed up against the wall and slender fingers gripped in Keith’s hair. 

“God,” Keith breathed out, taking a quick break from their _session,_ “I missed you so much.”

“Now don’t get sappy on me, Kogane.”

Keith lightly punched Lance’s arm. “You’re such a boner killer, McClain.” But that didn’t stop him from taking advantage of what little time they had. 

They basked in each other’s body heat, Keith exploring every inch of Lance’s back with his hands. The friction between them was electric. He couldn't, _wouldn’t,_ stop. He was trapped in Lance’s arms.

It was only when Keith’s comm around his waist started beeping that the two reluctantly detached. Checking the pager-like device, he frowned when Shiro’s name appeared, along with a message asking him where he was. He must’ve made a face, because Lance piped up with a vaguely frustrated, “Shiro?”

“Yup,” Keith replied, popping the ‘p.’

Lance snorted to himself, his freckled nose scrunching up in a way that made him look downright _cute._ “Your brother’s such a cockblock.” 

“Don’t I know it.” Grumbling, Keith made a half-hearted motion to smooth his uniform out, making sure to ignore how _tight_ his pants were. _God,_ did Lance get him wound up. But he couldn’t complain.

Seeing Lance again was like seeing the sun after years of darkness. And Keith was already blinded by his light. 

The impulsive part of the former paladin’s brain wanted him to reveal their relationship to the team, consequences be damned. Keith was sure that aside from Allura and maybe Shiro, no one would give a shit whether they were dating or not.

But Lance didn’t want to risk it, so Keith kept quiet.

“I’m sorry for ambushing you,” Lance murmured, filling the silence with a voice so low that Keith could barely hear. “I just wanted to surprise you.”

  
  
Keith had to stifle a grin. He shouldn’t be saying sorry - Keith _loved_ surprises. “Don’t apologise, it was nice.”

  
  
“I’m sure shoving you into a closet is nice,” Lance quipped back, giving him his signature grin that soon melted into something softer. “Promise me you’ll stay long enough for us to have some time together?”

Now that was something Keith could promise. “Of course.” he said, pressing one final kiss to Lance’s lips and basking in its warmth. Detaching once more, Keith felt a familiar pain in his heart return. He didn’t _want_ to leave, didn’t _want_ to stop kissing his boyfriend, but Shiro needed him. 

As he turned to walk out of the closet, Keith grinned as he heard Lance say behind him, 

“My room, tonight.”

And for once, Keith couldn’t wait for the mission to be over.

end.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it! I hope y'all enjoyed this! Lil detail, BMST stands for Blade of Marmora Standard Time lol.
> 
> If you liked my work, consider following me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/ashkazora) and [Twitter.](https://twitter.com/azorashka)
> 
> I'll do another fic giveaway at 200 followers on Tumblr, y'all can follow me over there to get updates about giveaways! And you liked this fic, please leave a kudos and comment! Your thoughts really help me improve my writing.
> 
> Thank you for reading! ❤


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